Originally Posted by
rottenjohn
1
I have a little over 8000 hours in various variants of the AS350 series. I’ve had a couple of mechanical failures but I’ve total confidence in its design and build. My boss a few years ago decided that a R44 would fill a niche. That thing scared the life out of me when for no reason whatsoever it started a weird oscillation, this was while flying over water. Just had to ride it out, varied the speed and collective. I thought it was going to flick me out the door.
He got rid of it soon after. I’ve lost 4 friends in 3 separate R44 crashes. None have really been explained as to why.
That sounds like a chugging problem they were having a while ago. They said changing the tranny mounts fixed the problem, however, they never seemed to figure out why it was chugging.
,...so gotta give you that one.